


My Sins as a Father, Remedied

by Kam14



Series: Love & Loss [15]
Category: ER (TV 1994)
Genre: Custody Battle, Death, F/M, Family, Fatherhood, Gen, Love, Minor Character Death, New Beginnings, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:56:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28539213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kam14/pseuds/Kam14
Summary: Peter reflects upon how he felt about his priorities at the time of Reese’s birth and how he feels about them now, after the death of his nephew, Jesse, and in light of Carla's death and his subsequent custody battle against Roger.
Relationships: Peter Benton/Carla Reese, Peter Benton/Cleo Finch
Series: Love & Loss [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2033827
Kudos: 2





	My Sins as a Father, Remedied

I was usually able to separate my emotions from my work. That’s most often what is required of a surgeon. This one was different though. It was the 16th November, 2000. One year and three months ago. I was called down to the ER to attend to a gunshot wound. When I got in there, I asked for all of the usual stats and gloved up, ready to begin my efforts to stop the bleeding and stabilise the patient on the table so we could get him up to surgery. That’s when I caught a glimpse of his face. I could feel blinding panic burning in the pit of my stomach. I was so taken aback by it that, for one of the few times in my career, I had to stop. I had to stop, I had to take a _very_ deep breath, and then I had to go. I had to do _everything_ in my power, utilise _every_ relevant surgical skill I had ever learned, I had to work as fast as my hands would possibly allow me to in order to save the victim in front of me. Nothing was working. I had never felt so out of my depth. The last time I had felt _this_ powerless was when Reese was born prematurely and was kept in the NICU for weeks. I called for an extra pair of hands. Then Dave Malucci came sauntering in droning on about how the teenager on the table in front of us, all bloodied and bruised, was ‘just another gang-banger’. _Dave_ wasn’t what I meant when I said ‘extra pair of hands’. That’s when the adrenaline fuelled by complete and utter panic turned to anger and I couldn’t stop myself from punching him square in the face. ‘I didn’t know’ was his answer when I told him that the teenager on the table was, in fact, my nephew, Jesse. Not that his so-called ‘apology’ made any difference; I still had to tell my sister, Jackie that her son had died on the table. That I couldn’t save Jesse.

Shortly after Jesse passed away, Jackie gave me a piece of advice that changed my perspective on family and, more specifically, changed my perspective on my relationship with my own son and the time that I take out of my working week to allocate to him. She told me:

“Peter, you can’t turn back the clock and do it all over. If there’s anything that Jesse’s passing has taught me, it’s that you should keep your kids close…keep them safe, keep them happy and not let anything get in the way of that. They _have_ to be your top priority. Sure, you can have other interests and goals in life, but _nothing_ will _ever_ be as important as the time that you get to spend with your kids. Don’t let anything stop you from spending time watching your boy grow up, Peter. God knows we don’t know when we’ll no longer be able to do that”.

At the time, it made me think twice about scheduling to work that extra shift on a Saturday or discouraged me from jetting off to some surgical conference in San Francisco in favour of spending the weekend with Reese. But the truth was, that it was only when Carla died in the October the following year that I really knew that I had to take being present for my son much more of a priority in my life. He had lost his mother at the tender age of five and I knew that I had to step up to the plate and do my part. Yes, Roger was there for him, Jackie was there for him, but I was his _father_. That was a fact that no amount of biology could change, and I needed to prioritise ensuring that he didn’t grow up feeling that, because he had experienced loss, he hadn’t _lost out._

When I made this resolution to myself, I also came to the difficult realisation that, admittedly, I perhaps hadn’t afforded Reese the time that I could have chosen to spend with him in his infancy. I was in the middle of my Residency, I was being told by Romano, by Hicks, by every senior surgeon (save for Abby Keaton) that I had glowing potential. I was totally career-driven; I had defeated all of the odds based upon my financial background, my educational background, my ethnicity; I was making something of myself and I was in no position whatsoever to father a child. But life throws curveballs and somehow, I did manage. I managed to overcome yet another obstacle. That in itself was the problem with the way I viewed fatherhood whilst Reese was a baby, though. My son is _not_ an obstacle. My son is one of the only things in my life that I _truly_ care about and I would give up anything and everything to make his life happy. I know that now, but I had to go the long way around to act upon my words.

Act upon my words I did, albeit late in the game after finding a new position as an Attending at a private hospital just outside of Chicago. I should have told Romano to stick his per diem position that he used to reprimand me after treating that god-awful, ungrateful kidney failure patient, Mr. Fletcher against his orders. And I almost lost Reese because of it; the judge saw that I had rushed—literally, I had to beg for that Attending position the _evening before_ the final custody hearing—to secure more child-friendly working hours. Thankfully, my last-minute efforts were enough for the judge to grant me custody of Reese as opposed to Roger, who was simply given visitation rights. But it took almost losing my son—the son whose fragile life Carla and I spent so many sleepless nights praying over in the NICU, afraid that he wouldn’t live to see the next sunrise—for me to realise that I had to step up. Just like Jackie said: Reese had to come first. And from now on, he will.

Thus, we—Cleo, Reese, and I—embark upon this new chapter in our lives. As we lie underneath the decorated spines of the Christmas tree, surrounded by boxes of our belongings that will soon inhabit our new suburban house situated near the new hospital at which Cleo and I were both employed, we reflect upon how we came to understand what matters to us most in our lives. It wasn’t too late for me to make a change. A change in my approach to fatherhood and family; a change for the better.

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, a peek inside the mind of the very reserved Peter Benton that we see on the show! I hope that I managed to capture sufficiently what his complex internal thoughts about fatherhood and family may have been and that you enjoyed reading!


End file.
